


What Shadows Can't Hide

by Fenix21



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s01e16 Shadow, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Platonic Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:23:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fenix21/pseuds/Fenix21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post episode 1.16 'Shadows'</p><p>A moment with the Winchester boys as they patch themselves up physically and emotionally after watching John drive away again and taking a beating from Meg's conjured Daeva</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Shadows Can't Hide

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Supernatural fanfic, so bear with me. I only started watching the Winchester boys a couple weeks ago and am already highly hooked on their emotional interplay. However, you may find the emotional tone needs tweaking for one or both of them as I don't have a solid feel for their interpersonal interactions just yet. Suggestions are always welcome.
> 
> I own nothing, just borrowing for a bit.

_“You boys—you’re beat to hell_ …”

 

It was an understatement.

With the adrenaline wearing off as midnight made the subtle shift from matte black to the more Pthalo blue of predawn, Sam started to feel the fiery sting of the lacerations on his face and the burning aches from various other parts of his body. Dean was stony and silent in the driver’s seat, left arm held tight to his side and wrapped across his stomach, the other on the steering wheel. 

“Dean…”

“Just a little farther, Sam. We need to get some distance between us and those things…and her,” Dean said.

Sam slumped a little further down in the seat. He hadn’t lost all that much blood, but he was starting to feel queasy imagining the gaping cuts across his face that he hadn’t even been brave enough to prod with his fingers yet. The thought of trying to patch himself back together in a motel bathroom mirror made his stomach roll. He closed his eyes and dropped his head back, taking a deep breath against the nausea. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“I got you, Sammy. Just breathe.”

Sam cracked an eye to see Dean’s hand resting on him; his knee was bracing the steering wheel momentarily. He never looked over at him and his voice was just barely a whisper. He wondered for a second if Dean had even meant to be heard. The hand fell away and Sam closed his eyes again.

He must have drifted off because the next thing he knew Dean was opening his door and tugging on the shoulder of his jacket, half dragging him out of the car. Sam followed, stumbling a couple of steps, catching himself against the doorframe of the room Dean was shoving a keycard at.

“I’ll get the stuff out of the car. Go lay down,” Dean commanded. He tossed the card on the table and turned back to get their gear.

Sam obliged his brother. He was tired, bloody, his body ached everywhere. They took a beating during a lot of their jobs, but the damages weren’t often that physical, usually more in the lines of psychic trauma and exhaustion. This time was a little different. 

His knees gave out as he tried to sit down and he wound up sprawled sideways across one of the double beds. His whole body was shaking now like he’d drunk a couple dozen cups of coffee without bothering to eat. 

He heard Dean drop the bags beside the door and shut it with his foot, throw the lock. There was a few minutes of rustling, a couple of bitten groans, water running in the bathroom, and then Sam felt a cool, damp cloth blotting gently at his shredded cheek. He forced his eyes open.

Dean was squatting beside him with a washcloth already saturated in blood, the room’s ice bucket full of cool water between his feet. He rinsed the cloth, squeezed, and went back to gently blotting Sam’s face.

“Can you sit up?” Dean asked “So, I can see your face better in the light?”

Sam nodded and rolled slowly up onto his elbow. His stomach rolled again.

“Easy,” Dean said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy.”

Sam swallowed, took a breath, and sat the rest of the way up. He hefted himself up toward the headboard and them leaned there, head back, face tilted to the light on the stand between the beds. Dean shifted up onto the bed beside him, flinching just a little, and unfurled the roll of medical supplies from his bag. 

Sam sat patiently, eyes heavy and drooping while Dean finished cleaning him up, applied ointment to the cuts and then gently pressed the skin back together and sealed it with steri-strips and suture glue. He pulled out a bottle and shook it once at Sam.

“Painkillers?”

Sam rolled his head. “Nah. I think I’d just throw them back up.”

“Right.” Dean dropped the bottle back in the roll, folded it over and tossed it onto the other bed. He patted Sam’s shoulder. “You should get some sleep, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sam said drowsily and slid downward until he was lying prone on top of the comforter, jacket and shoes still on. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept in his clothes. 

He felt Dean lightly ruffle his hair and move off the bed.

The room fell silent and Sam started to slip into a doze, thinking Dean had laid down and passed out on the other bed, when he heard a groan and sharp intake of breath. He rolled his head toward Dean and blinked his eyes into focus.

Dean was sitting on the edge of the bed, gingerly pulling his shirt away from a nasty gash across his stomach that disappeared upward around his ribs. It took Sam almost a full minute to process the amount of blood on Dean’s shirt and how pale and sweaty his face was compared to the rest of him. He’d been so lost in his own discomfort and exhaustion, thinking recalcitrantly on their father’s sudden appearance and just as sudden disappearance, that he hadn’t noticed how white Dean’s knuckles had been on the steering wheel, how shallow his breathing was, how tightly drawn his mouth was, compressed against his own pain while he took care of his little brother’s injuries before even looking at his own.

“Dean?” Sam fought back the last fogginess of sleep and rolled off the bed, dropping to his knees in front of his brother. “Jesus…why didn’t you say something? This is bad, Dean.”

Dean tried to smirk, but it got twisted by pain. “I’ve had worse.”

“Yeah, well…” Sam ditched his jacket quickly, shoved up his sleeves and reached carefully to peel the bloody fabric away from the wound. He hissed between his teeth. “Dean, I think you may need a hospital. This is pretty deep.”

“I’ll be fine. Just—just need to clean it and tape it up.” He gasped again as Sam maneuvered his shirt over his shoulder, down his arm, and off of him. “Done it before.”

Sam shook his head hopelessly. Dean was breathing deep now, concentrated and regular, trying to stave off unconsciousness. His eyes were starting to glass over. Sam finished divesting him of his shirt and gave him a gentle push downward.

“Lay down on your side.” He grabbed the pillows from his bed and piled them behind Dean to support his back, then grabbed the ice bucket and headed to the bathroom for fresh water, washcloths, and towels. 

“Dean?” Sam asked quietly when he came back. Dean’s eyes were closed, but his brow was still furrowed in pain. “Dean, stay with me.”

“Not goin’ anywhere little brother,” Dean said tightly, trying to smile again.

Sam shook his head at Dean’s continued attempt at making light of the nasty wound trailing across his torso. It was still leaking blood, albeit slowly. He soaked a hand towel and began to carefully clean around the wound. Dean gritted his teeth against another moan and his muscles tensed as he forced himself to lay still under Sam’s ministrations.

“Dean, I really don’t think—,” Sam started to protest.

“Here,” Dean rummaged blindly in the medical supplies and came up with a pack of heavy duty adhesive sutures and tape. “Just tape me together. Bandage it. It’ll be fine.”

“But…” Sam trailed off as his eyes roved over Dean’s torso and shoulders. He leaned up to look at his back and sucked in a breath. He’d seen his brother without his shirt countless times, in less even, but somehow he’d never managed to notice the myriad of scars littering Dean’s body, a few dipping beneath the waistband of his jeans. Most looked like they were relatively low grade, didn’t even probably need much more than a bandage for a day, but others looked angry, jagged, and mean; a welted testimony to the life his brother lived. “Jesus, Dean…”

Dean opened an eye to the twisted grimace of sympathetic pain on Sam’s face. He picked up the cloth where it had dropped onto the bed from his brother’s limp fingers and handed it back to him. “Price for a job well done.”

Sam took the cloth back, shaking his head again. He felt a burning in his gut that didn’t have anything to do with his own wounds. He was furious. He’d never felt anything quite like it. He’d been defensive on his brother’s behalf before. He’d sympathized, even empathized; but he’d never felt anything this sharp and biting. He was angry at the monsters for doing this to his big brother, he was angry with their father for dragging Dean along and making him into a hunter, he was angry with Dean for not thinking any more highly of himself that he would take these kind of hits in his stride and not think anything of them.

He finished cleaning the wound, blotting carefully until the blood had all but stopped, then he carefully pressed the skin back together as best he could and applied the sutures and then reinforced it with long strips of tape. He found a few rolls of bandage and wound them tightly around Dean’s chest to keep pressure on the wound and hopefully keep it closed. 

Dean ground his teeth through the whole process until the end and finally let out a low cry and bit down on his knuckles as Sam clipped the bandages in place. 

“Dean?” Sam grabbed his shoulders, panic slicing through him.

“Fine—I’m fine,” Dean gasped out. He gestured to the roll on the bed. “Antibiotics. Blue bottle.”

Sam found the bottle, dolled out a couple of tablets and held them out to Dean, but his hand was shaking badly when he tried to reach for them. Sam retrieved a cup of water from the bathroom and then gently pushed the pills past Dean's lips and held the cup so he could drink enough to swallow.

Dean fell back on the pillows, sweat springing up fresh on his skin at his exertions. “Did good, Sammy.”

Sam wasn’t sure exactly what part of the last ten hours Dean was referring to; their impromptu reunion with Dad, the idea of putting the Daeva at heel with the flare, or his rudimentary triage job on Dean’s injuries. He sat back on his heels, grabbed a fresh cloth and began wiping the blood away from Dean face and forehead where the Daeva had left long shallow cuts. Nothing near what Sam sported but still messy. 

He thought Dean had drifted off while he was working, but when he went to pull away, his brother’s hand came up. Dean covered Sam’s hand and held it to his cheek. His eyes were still closed, and he didn’t say anything, just laid there with Sam’s hand pinned. Sam tugged the cloth loose from under his trapped fingers and absently rubbed his thumb against Dean’s cheek. Dean still didn’t move, and Sam’s legs started to tingle at being folded up under him for so long.

He shifted carefully, trying to keep his hand in place but finally having to pull it away, to Dean’s whined protest, so that he could climb across him and settle onto the mattress behind him. They had slept together a lot as kids, huddled in a double or queen sized bed a few feet from their dad in one more rundown motel room; but it had been years and Sam was usually the one cupped in the protective curve of Dean’s body, not the other way around. He hesitated a little as he slung an arm gingerly across Dean, but Dean reached around with a protesting groan and tugged the pillows from between them and then arched himself backward. Sam wiggled forward and formed himself up against Dean’s hard back, pulling him gently in and settling his arm carefully above the wound.

Dean sighed and Sam felt his muscles go loose and limp, his breathing evening out quickly until Sam was sure he had finally fallen asleep. 

Sam’s eyes drooped closed and the light in the room was starting to fade as sleep took him when he heard a soft whisper. 

“Sammy. What you said—about leavin’ and going your own way—did you really mean it?”

Sam dropped his uninjured cheek to rest on Dean’s short, bristly hair. “Dean, I…”

He couldn’t finish because he honestly didn’t know. He had meant it when he said it, when he told Dean  he’d have to let him go after they found Dad and killed that sonofabitch demon that had killed Mom. But lying here in the honeyed pool of light from the motel lamp with the gray of dawn pressing in at the window shades; with Dean injured and about as vulnerable as Sam had ever seen him; and Sam’s own mind tumbling over itself trying to figure out just how he felt about seeing Dad again and then letting him walk away because Dean was right—Dad only had one weak spot and it came in the shape of his boys—no matter how much Sam didn’t like it. 

Dean must have sensed his hesitation. He lifted his hand to pat the back of Sam’s where it rested across his chest. “It’s okay, Sammy. I just…I just don’t know what I’d do without you, you know? And not just now. With this.” He shrugged a little, paying for it with a painful twinge from under the layers of tape, to indicate Sam’s recent handiwork. “I…need you. With me. That’s why I came to get you. I just don’t think I can do this alone.”

Sam sucked back a sob, squeezed his eyes shut tight, and buried his face in the curve of Dean’s neck under his ear. Dean tried to reach back and ruffle Sam’s hair in reassurance but it was too far for his taped up muscles and he dropped his arm back with a huff. Sam just tucked his arm more closely around Dean’s chest and buried his face deeper.

“Sammy, don’t—don’t cry. I know you’ve gotta have your own life. Honestly, it’s what I always wanted for you, but sometimes…I just feel a little selfish.”

Sam lifted his face enough to sniffle and plant a forceful kiss against the back of his brother’s head. His voice was choked and rough when he spoke. “Get some sleep, Dean. I’ll be right here when you wake up. Promise.”

 


End file.
